Sighting in Montayral, October 23, 2015

In the late afternoon, the witness drove to the Fumel aerodrome to get some fresh air with their dog. They went past the hangars and parked in a small space near some surveyor's markers. They opened the door and let the dog out. On turning around, they noticed in the sky "a black spot in a black fog", high up and far away. At the lower left, the object had a kind of handle shaped like an arc of a circle. It stayed perfectly still and made no noise. The sky was blue, with no haze. The witness had neither binoculars nor a camera. They looked away for a few seconds and then could not find the phenomenon again, as it had disappeared. According to the report, it had remained motionless for about twenty minutes. Surprised, the witness expected other people to mention it in the press the next day, which most likely did not happen. No other testimony was collected.

The investigation ruled out several hypotheses because of the immobility, the sudden disappearance or the appearance described: a celestial body, an aircraft, a helicopter, and an eye problem on the witness's part. It then focused on a balloon, excluding a rubber party balloon (too small) and a solar balloon, and settled on a hot-air balloon. That was realistic for the location and a sunny late afternoon, and a size of 10 to 20 m would explain the distant, blurry look. However, the protuberance, which did not point downward, fits poorly with a basket, and the quick disappearance fits only if several favorable assumptions are stacked. Hot-air balloon pilots in the département who were contacted did not reply, which is not an argument against the hypothesis. Its probability, well below 50%, was too low for it to be accepted. The witness was precise and credible, and the testimony, a single account with no photograph, was just consistent enough to confirm the case as unexplained. GEIPAN classified it D1, an unexplained phenomenon of medium strangeness, after review by its panel of experts.